The past 20 years has seen the way legal information is delivered change from paper based resources to searchable online repositories.

The information highway has roared into our lives both at work and home and is available 24/7.

Law librarians are facing unprecedented change [description of technological changes impacting on libraries since the 1960s]

For law students, legal research is becoming very complicated for lawyers and law students.

Once upon a time, legal research was limited to a finite world, the resources of the library's collection - now these limits are gone. People get lost in all the information.

As librarians, we need to teach them how to analyse and understand the information. Legal research is a dry topic to teach

Students in this "wired in" generation are technologically very savvy but does this mean that they are as capable in their ability to research in the online world?

It's been a constant that students don't learn research skills very well when they're at uni. One reason I that until they really need to use it, it is difficult for them to learn it.

Surveyed first and fourth year law students to capture their perception of how they research and why they use particular strategies.

Karen presented some compelling findings that highlighted Gen Ys inflated estimate of their own legal research ability. Good at using online apps, but not so good at evaluating info.

They equate computer literacy with information literacy and analytical ability. Since an online environment is familiar to them, they are out of their comfort zone in print. They just use online resources, they don't understand the purpose of reference books.

Were they familiar with the legal databases on uni intranet?

First year students: most had one favourite (AustLII) and didn't use any others; for research, 30% used Google and the internet and nothing else, others did start with a text-book and then followed up in AustLII and Lexis.

Fourth year students: 10% weren't comfortable with online databases; 90% of them thought they were competent researchers; were divided 50/50 thinking that legal research instruction was a waste of time, versus those who thought it was important.

"Something is missing in the legal research education being delivered to (or uptaken by) students" and this has implications for how to teach legal research.

As part of their goal of providing information literacy skills to students undertaking the Bachelor of Laws the Law Library have given a series of four introductory classes to first years which sought to give students the basics of legal research.

Embedded in a compulsory first year class, traditional in-class instruction, covering basics of legal research and citation.

Library deliver 4 weeks of 19 classes per week at intake each year/semester of legal research skills training.

Then, for students who miss the class and want one-on-one training, each staff does maybe 6 or so extra sessions.

It had become noticeable that there were other external factors impinging upon student learning:

Time poor student

Financial pressures

Family, friends etc

The Library decided to deliver the course in an online environment.

A liaison librarian replicated the first year classes in Backboard, the University of Queensland's learning management system.

Limitations of Blackboard (current academic discussion platform) to present "more than just screenshots" to explain how to use a database. Instruction had to be largely text-based and was thus "wordy".

While this was a replication it was also a reconceptualising of the course of study.

How could they more effectively teach this course in an online environment?

Started thinking about a more interactive and dynamic (less static) delivery format.

They considered different learning styles. They had to work within the nuances of Blackboard. There was a worry that maybe nobody would use it (there had been a different post-grad info literacy course which was never used).

The big technological issue was demonstrating databases:

Wimba (teach live online via Internet software) was investigated, but didn't work well with library proxy service.

Lextopia - what UQ lecturers use to record their lectures - its file sizes were too large.

Then was offered a project in examining the potential of a particular podcasting s/w which happened to be in the Mac environment.

They investigated podcasting via Garage Band and Screenflow.

Editing software was good, allowed editing out of words like "umm".

Podcasting have maintenance issues too. If database changes, do you have to change the podcasts too?

They were able to make podcasts which worked very well with iPods and iPhones

Created podcasts for delivery of legal research skills education to first year law students.

Has been quite a bit of work.

Access benefits - 24hr, remote.

Save time of Librarian.

Stats show 35,000 hits on the site - very successful, great feedback.

Well received by international students.

Survey results: 20% strongly agreed they were useful, 50% agreed they were useful

Demo of the product.

Podcasts only on a couple of subjects and used alongside current classroom teaching.

The two delivery methods complement each other and cater to different learning preferences (styles).

The online versions of classes weren't published until after the actual class, so students had an incentive to attend.

At present 4 modules - Looking at developing more modules for the service.

Looking at developing podcasts that will be available in iTunesU.

Q. Is there a goal to reduce face to face classes now that this online version is available?

Podcasting for the basic stuff, and experimenting with trying the more advanced content in the physical class.

The University of Melbourne Law School employed a new dean in 2008. One of his goals was to improve the Library. He negotiated the U of Mighigan law librarian (Margaret Leary) to visit and consult about Melb uni offering a fully graduate law school.

Two main models used in US academic law libraries:

Librarians provide several hours of research assistance to faculty who need help

Faculty services librarian supervise a team of research assistants to undertake faculty research projects.

All variants of these models have the liaison librarian concept embedded in them.

The service aims to provide access to the best available information for the purposes of research and knowledge transfer which frees academic staff time for thinking, writing, creating knowledge and advancing legal scholarship.

Liaison Librarians deliver material to faculty and proactively ask faculty what they need.

Research request templates are available online via the library's Intranet.

Librarians scope out research:

which databases to use

keywords etc

search strategy

Research clerks do the work.

The law research service research assistants develop superior research skills and experience in organising and presenting research results.

Q. Is this devaluing law library content by doing research for faculty?

A. No. It is making library staff super users, which means to content is valued by faculty.

With the evolution and advancement of online legal resources resulting in the demise of the use of print based materials, there has been a substantive shift in the practice and teaching of legal research.

Now is the time for tracking seamlessly through hyperlinks in a vast range of legal databases, and trawling through a myriad of citations found in Google.

Historical overview of the evolution of legal research

The evolution of legal materials. Traditionally, legal research was based on printed text. The printed word provides a legal context which we all rely on.

Anecdote: she was burgled recently, her laptop was stolen, which contained her paper. If she had printed out the paper she would not have had to rewrite it.

Quotes Ian Gallacher, Hitchhiker's Guide to teaching legal research to the Google generation.

Blogs - the challenge is to get students to engage with them (and each other).

Twitter - Examples, UQ Legal research rescue.

Wikis - very helpful with group work. Uni of Ottawa, Wake Forest Uni have legal research wikis.

Content sharing: Google docs, scribd, slideshare.

Law students are often competitive and reluctant to share. We need to help them to learn to share - eLearning programs; course management systems (eg. Blackboard, Moodle); Virtual classrooms are more interactive (eluminate), Camtasia, Adobe Captivate, Jing (screen capture and screen casting).

Teach legal eduction in First Life - have space "Interaction island" which looks and feels like the library.

The Australian continent covers approximately 7.7 million square kilometres of the surface of the Earth and the maritime boundaries within which Australia has fisheries jurisdiction cover approximately 10 million square kilometres of marine areas.

A number of challenges have been made to certain legislative measures in this area and consequently a significant body of case law is emerging in relation to fisheries law enforcement within Australian jurisdiction.

ALLA Victoria has a new online union list known as HAL = Holdings ALLA Vic Libraries.

They weren't happy with their first generation Prosentient service. Approached vendor with concerns - updating of records took too long (sometimes 15 minutes per record).

Decided to design own site after limited support from vendor - mates rates $10,000 for new service.

All they needed was a library catalogue with a request system. Looked further and found a different vendor seeking a non-profit discount. FIRST decided to do this for no costs

Product of collaboration between ALLA Victoria and FIRST software solutions. FIRST provided the platform free-of-charge.

Called the system HAL - paid a graphic design co $300 to design a logo - that was the only expense.

Demo of service: it is an effective, functional and stylish inter-library loan and document delivery system.

Keeps a record of titles requested for collection management.

Can generate reports on incoming and outgoing requests.

Print pdf of entire union holdings or browse by title.

Can export holdings to platform via Excel spreadsheet.

Libraries can subscribe to directory service only (where they can see the holdings of other libraries, but they cannot request to borrow).

Other states are now using HAL systems. WA is building a version of HAL adopting the Victorian system.

They hope to develop a national network with the ability to make/receive requests from other states. Interstate requests could be turned off or on (big firms with offices in different sate mightn't want this).

Q. Does Hal have the ability to provide fee-based requests?

Yes although in Victoria it is a free service. There is a code of conduct for use is on ALLA website; internal clients always take precedence, HAL should be used as a last resort.

sign up information made very clear. packages have both opt-in and opt-out features.

Packages minimise confusion, a good way of dealing with lateral recruits. Packages can be handed to news lawyers at induction.

A Current Awareness guide details what packages are offered and what info is covered in each one.

Current Awareness package examples:

Journals package for Tax group.

Legalisation package for climate change group.

Case alert for construction delivered twice per week or daily, with commentary.

Journals alert monthly

Summary of new reported cases

For needs outside the Current Awareness packages provided, tailored solutions to individual needs are offered.

Delivery is via email, as lawyers prefer email delivery. Delivery of CA in a medium that would require lawyers to check something else was undesirable.

Using email is also a risk management issue. It is integrated with document management system to archive all CA alerts.

Email can be accessed by Blackberries and iphones. Often lawyers like to access CA when they're on the move or in transit.

RSS - Users surveyed didn't know what it was, said they forgot to check their reader, would prefer an email anyway.

Also not all publishers support RSS.

RSS has most scope for Intranet deliver - can feed into Intranet page - (eg. PG or client homepage), providing second tier for CA

Or info can go onto wiki for further internal collaboration.

3rd party CA products. May have a lot of value for smaller firms and libraries, but don't offer the customisation which Blakes needed.

In summary, the purpose of CA is to minimise the gap between the information which people want and the information they get stuck with.

Questions

Q. How do you put together the packages?

Compiled manually by library staff. Copy and Paste in Word more or less.

Q. How do you achieve timeliness of the alerts when you have to rely on legal staff to provide commentary?

Precedent lawyers and paralegals write the commentary; Lawyers pick out the important cases to highlight; Filtering is done collaborating with KM or practice groups.

This collaboration is "managed" and some groups are easier to get on board than others.

There were difficulties getting assistance from KM. Get buy-in by leveraging our ability to provide KM with information.

Q. What cost per lawyer for new CA service - not quantified

Blackberry links: they work better in iPhones, HTML always looks bad in blackberries.

Tension re using authoritative sources and currency of information - it's been an issue of managing expectations.

Q. Do the alerts go out to clients?

I was not able to ask this question, but I gather that if you have just one source of Current awareness, then the one service should go out or be tailored to go out to clients. At any rate Marketing would repackage the info accordingly.